Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday announced that the government will amend the Essential Commodities Act to enable better price realization for farmers. The move will ensure that cereals, pulses, onions, potatoes get deregulated, the FM said in her press briefing, the third tranche of the Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus and reforms package as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Essential Commodities Act, 1955 was enacted in the days of scarcity, the FM said. The stock limit to be imposed under very exceptional circumstances like national calamities, famine with the surge in prices.

Now, no such stock limit shall apply to processors or value chain participants, subject to their installed capacity or to any exporter subject to the export demand.

The FM also said that the government will bring in a law to implement agriculture marketing reforms to provide marketing choices to farmers. The law will provide adequate choices to the farmer to sell produce at attractive prices.

In the third tranche of Rs 20 lakh-crore package announced by the Prime Minister, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday came up with an 11-point plan for farmers' welfare, fisheries and food processing.

The third tranche of measures being announced today focuses on agriculture and allied activities, including fisheries, said the Finance Minister.

The government announced Rs 1 lakh crore for aggregators and startups in the agriculture sector, including warehouse and cold chains. The benefit will also go to the farmers' cooperatives.

The government also announced Rs 10,000 crore for cluster-based manufacturing for nutritional products in which 2 lakh MFI will benefit, for example, Kashmir can have 'Kesar' and Bihar can have 'Makhana' clusters.

"India is the largest milk producer, largest jute and pulses producer, second largest in sugarcane, cotton, groundnut, fruits, vegetables and fisheries and third in cereals. The Indian farmer has really endured and made sure that he would give us the highest yield, said Sitharaman.

The Finance Minister said it goes to the credit of the Indian farmer who has always stood up to various challenges and has made India reach certain global benchmarks.

-with inputs from agencies

First Published:May 15, 2020 5:07 PM IST